𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚔𝚎.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚟𝚒𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎'𝚜 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚔𝚎.

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚢.

𝚃𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚢.

𝚈𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍.

𝙸 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚍.

𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗.

𝙲𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎' 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚢.

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚞𝚙.

Lennon managed to clean her body of sweat and the heat from the water made up for the fact her brother was going to chew her a new one for running the bill high.

She was more than thankful to get out of all the uniforms and preppy clothing so she could slide into a pair of baggy pajama pants and a loose Foreigner shirt.

However, her relief was cut short in the morning when she found Brontë, Steve, Nancy, two younger boys, and Barbra, who she knew from the paper, all passed out in the living room when she woke up.

Lennon was quick to revert into her room and grabbed some clothes that would continue to give people the impression that she cared about how she looked.

She changed and peeked out from the hallway to see that everyone was still asleep. She tiptoed to the bathroom and quickly put some effort into her hair, put on some deodorant, sprayed some vanilla-sandalwood perfume inside her collar, then walked out as if she hadn't put much thought into her appearance.

She didn't try to be quiet but she also wasn't intending on waking them up from their drunken states.

Brontë was asleep on the floor, leaving Steve and one of the younger boys draped partially off the side of the couch to sleep. Nancy had fallen asleep in the armchair, pulling her knees to her chest as she snored softly. Barb was sleeping on the ground beside Nancy, and the other boy who she recognized from the basketball team was stirring from underneath the glass coffee table in the middle of the room.

She genuinely had to question how they got themselves into those positions before they passed out.

Bottles of beer and wine coolers were spread throughout the room and Lennon took it upon herself to start throwing them all in the recycling. The clinking of glass and clattering of them being pushed into the bin woke the younger boy on the couch, Nancy, and Barb.

"Oh shit!" she could hear one of them grow flustered as they scrambled to grab something. "Lucas! Get up!" the boy kicked the other one who was underneath the table in the side. The boy named Lucas bolted upright, resulting in him hitting his head on the glass and moaning out in pain.

"Dustin!" he complained.

"We were supposed to be home by ten last night! It's seven!" the boy named Dustin quickly got to his feet, pulled on his coat, and raced out of the house, causing Steve and Brontë to stir.

People started to wake up and use the bathroom and eventually, the girls held a short conversation with Lennon before leaving. But Steve stuck around. And he would continue to stick around for a while so Lennon took to the streets.

She groaned and took her walkman with her on a short run around the neighborhood. She just wanted to stay home and binge-watch all six Friday the 13th films Brontë had on VHS and lay around so she could recover but not while Steve was around.

Even though Steve knew her before, he didn't really know her. He was capable of pointing out her behaviors in public and she didn't want people to doubt her capability to be like the others at school. He needed to believe it too.

But she just needed a break.

Luckily, Brontë needed to go back to work by six that day so Steve didn't stay longer than it took to say goodbye to Lennon when she got home.

What she expected was for Brontë to take a nap so he wasn't drunk on fatigue at three in the morning, but instead, he turned the living room into an interrogation room. Lennon would know, she had seen more than enough of those in her seventeen years of life.

"So how many dicks did you have to suck to get here?" he moved for a bag of chips and chewed obnoxiously loud as he recovered from his semi-hangover.

"None," she complained, changing into some sweatpants with the door open since he wouldn't be able to see her from the couch. "No thanks to you."

"Hey," he defended. "I have my priorities straight, sis. I didn't join a million clubs in the middle of the year knowing I rely on the charity of my brother's sentiment to get back home."

"That's not fair," she sighed, whipping her hair up into a messy bun before plopping herself down beside Brontë and shoving her hand into his bag of salt and vinegar chips. "If I had any say, none of this would've happened," she explained painfully. "You're my closest blood relative. Neither of us asked for me to be here. You don't need to keep reminding me of how much of a burden I am," she avoided meeting his gaze as she stared at the TV screen that displayed a car insurance commercial before MTV came on.

"You're not a burden," he insisted. "I just don't get why you had to go and give yourself one-hundred-one responsibilities this year when you and I both know you just want it all to go as quickly as possible," he looked over at his little sister and if she had just turned her head, she would've seen the sincerity in his eyes that he failed to share in his voice.

"The kids that are liked by people have it easier and the more people I'm around, the more alibis I have. Not like last time..." she stole another chip. "There won't be room for mistakes if I don't have time to do anything else," she admitted solemnly. "I won't be villainized for something I didn't do..."

She knew her brother would have made another joke about the investigation always being her excuse but he must have noticed how bothered she was because he dropped it.

"So," he handed her the bag of chips and lifted a Redbull to his lips to wash it all down. "Do I need to bring you to work on Mondays and Fridays or was the walk not that bad?" he drew out lazily, knowing that his sympathy for his sister would make him feel guilty for not being more considerate the next time it happened.

"I wouldn't know," she informed him, causing him to stop drinking and turn to her in question. "I caught a ride."

"Someone I know?" he asked, wanting to make sure she was safe despite his verbal mockery.

"How should I know, idiot?" she leered at him inconsiderately. "And I'm not putting this back," she tossed the rolled-up bag onto Brontë's lap, knowing that was his scheme the whole time. It was something they did as children before Miss Riordan moved him and her to Indiana when he was thirteen. It didn't matter if he brought them out to the living room, whoever ate from it last had to take it back.

"Well I hope you at least knew them," he offered, throwing the bag back onto her lap.

"I don't know anybody but your hot-shot buddy," she ridiculed him, tossing the bag back. "I've only been there for five days."

"You know that's how all of Ted Bundy's victims got murdered," Brontë admitted to defeat and took the chips back to the kitchen but failed to put them in the cabinet and just left them on the counter.

"Yeah," she chuckled. "That's what I told him."

"Him?" Brontë whipped around and narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he got protective.

"Oh, my God..." she rolled her eyes. "Don't play the 'protective big brother' card, please..."

"What's his name?" Brontë leaned over the kitchen bar that opened up into the living room.

Lennon groaned. "Not Ted Bundy," she complained, moving for the remote and increasing the volume of U2.

"Right," Brontë walked around the side of the kitchen and snatched the remote from her hand before turning the TV off entirely. "Does 'Not Ted Bundy' have another name?"

"Some guy named Eddie," she replied, getting to her feet and moving into the kitchen herself to put the bag of chips away and get herself some water. "Now take a nap," she shot back bitterly. "You act like you're on your period when you're tired."

"I-" she could hear him get offended in the next room over. "I do not," he scowled. "And this, 'some dude named Eddie'..." he drew out, walking up to the bar and watching as she gulped down her glass of water. "He wouldn't happen to have long, shaggy hair and be covered in tattoos, would he?" Brontë pressed further like he already had an inkling.

But based on his tone and discouraging eyes, she had a feeling he knew the man but regretted admitting it.

"Well I wouldn't know if he was 'covered in tattoos'," she mocked him and put air quotes around her words. "But he might've. Why? You know him?" she asked, rinsing her glass and wiping it down with the towel set out beside the sink.

"Yeah," Brontë's eyes got big and his tone got slightly pinched as he answered the obvious question. "He was a freshman back when I was a junior... and when I graduated, he supposed close behind... But the next thing I know, Steve and him are sharing classes. I know he repeated once but... Shit. He still hasn't graduated?" he laughed mockingly.

"How's that even possible?" Lennon asked, putting her glass back in the cupboard. Brontë was twenty-one now, he graduated almost four years ago and Eddie was supposed to be on his tail? Why was he still in high school? How old did that make him?

"Pft," her brother pursed his lips. "I don't know. You would think taking the same classes over and over again would force you to remember something useful," he mocked Eddie. "But," he shook his head to clear his mind. "That doesn't matter. What the hell does he want with you?"

"Okay," Lennon stared up at the ceiling before she shot her brother a death stare. "I'll pretend not to be offended by that tone," she laughed contemptuously. "What the hell would he want with you?" she shot back protectively.

"Drugs!" Brontë happily replied, nodding his head mockingly. "He had some hardcore shit stored in his locker last time I saw him. So I'll ask again. What the fuck does a druggie like him want with you? Or better yet, how does a druggie like him end up hitching a ride with you?" he shot back enunciatively.

"Okay, calm the fuck down," she chuckled. "He literally gave me ride down to Willis so I didn't freeze my tits off, nothing more," she assured him. "And I have no interest in anything other than those gummies you keep on your bedside table," she giggled. "So chill."

He scolded her for stealing from his stash and warned her about Eddie more calmly.

There was word going around that he didn't just dabble in drugs, but he dabbled in a bit of the Devil too. Lennon didn't believe him of course but he seemed to believe the public.

Brontë told Lennon he was a nineteen-year-old failure who repeated the tenth and twelfth grades. He was a rock-and-roll wannabe who smoked and snorted just about anything he could get his hands on, most likely had HIV or Hepatitis, identified himself as a sodomite, and could be found wandering around Lover's Lake doing ritualistic sacrifices.

Lennon, in unconvinced disbelief, didn't take Brontë seriously for one moment and asked if all that be true, why he hadn't been arrested or convicted. All he could come up with was that nobody could catch him or prove that he was guilty in a court of law.

So, again, Lennon wouldn't believe it until she saw it for herself. The Eddie she met seemed strange in a charming way. He didn't have darkness in him, not in ways that mattered. She only saw craters of honey and whiskey inside those eyes of his.

She didn't think he would be the kind of person to inject his veins with all the shit people see on the news or in the papers. He seemed like a stoner who didn't take school too seriously. The man she met didn't match the description her brother gave her, and yet she knew they were the same person.

She hadn't given him much thought, but now she couldn't stop thinking about him. He soon became all she thought about.

***

Come Monday, Brontë promised to be waiting outside so she could go to work with him and walk home from there. He said it was a kindness he was doing, but she knew it was because he didn't want her to ride with Eddie again.

She doubted he would offer it anyways.

She did her usual rounds in class, got to know Nancy a little bit better, came out of her shell in front of Steve and his friends, and introduced herself to one of Nancy's friends. His name was Jonathan and Lennon learned he did the photography for the school paper. She made sure to remember him since he seemed quiet and likable and they shared a common interest so she felt obligated to attempt to befriend him.

What she found interestingly different beyond her increasing comfort around her classmates was the fact she kept her eyes peeled for that tall brunette with the distressed denim jacket in the halls, in class, in study hall, at the gym... She kept trying to find Eddie amongst the crowd.

And by lunch, she had given up and considered she had made him up entirely in her head. It wouldn't be the craziest thing she had done to cope.

However, as she sat with the cheer team, feeling comfortable enough to sit a little ways away from Steve and his friends, there he was: Eddie.

The cafeteria was painfully segregated between cliques. There were the jocks of the basketball team and the cheer team, the math nerds, band geeks, misfits, the popular girls, science nerds, chess-obsessives, frat-wannabes, the goths, the punks, the hippies, the quirky kids, art fanatics, the meatheads, theatre kids, and then there were the geeks.

There he was, sitting at the head of the table with his nose in a magazine.

Guys sat beside him wearing the same shirt that he had on which featured a little red demon at its core. Eddie had layered that shirt with an overworn leather jacket and sealed the deal with a distressed jean vest over that.

Lennon had swallowed uncomfortably seeing him sitting across the room. His hair was fluffy and his propped-up knee gave him an effortless edge as he continued reading.

She wouldn't have placed him with the geeks by the way he dressed and presented himself.

The image of him didn't match Brontë's but it did remind her of her brother's personality. He associated himself with the basketball team like Steve. He wore band-tees with a lettermen jacket and always had a girl on his arm when he attended Hawkins. He didn't dress in black or wear studded boots, but he acted like a punk.

A chameleon.

The Seagraves were chameleons.

But in the same manner, Eddie dressed like a punk but acted like a geek.

People at Hawkins were quite the contradiction.

If Lennon could just get over her fear of rejection and judgment, she could probably make life a little easier for herself. But she was traumatized and she couldn't risk it. Everything scared her and she couldn't push past it.

Instead, she wore her uncomfortable jeans and loose-fitted button-ups with her brother's jacket hanging over her shoulders to fit in.

"What are you looking at?" Tina giggled, moving to get close, following her line of sight, and failing to find anything of interest when she cast her gaze out into the crowd.

"Huh?" she sat upright and blinked rapidly as she turned towards the brunette beside her. "Sorry, it's nothing," she moved for her water bottle and drowned her dry mouth with the liquid.

"No..." Tina drew out cheerily. "Who were you just checking out?" the girl pulled back and smirked mischievously.

"I wasn't," Lennon smiled through the embarrassment and chewed down on a baby carrot.

Tina gasped dramatically and her eyes widened with excitement before she turned back towards the crowd and scanned the people around them. "You totally were!" she cried out in glee. "Who is it?" she giggled, turning back to Lennon for some guidance.

"I wasn't checking anybody out," she chuckled.

"Lenny..." she smiled brightly. "You look like that cartoon cat in the paper with the big heart eyes. Tell me," she bounced in her seat with excitement, trying her best not to squeal as she placed her hand on the girl's forearm and gently shook her.

The sudden pressure of her hands did alarm Lennon but it wasn't as bad as it would've been a few months ago. She was making progress, just very slow progress.

"Where's Hargrove?" she smirked, teasing Tina as she changed the subject. "Haven't seen him today."

"It's not him is it?" she gasped.

"No," Lennon chuckled. "He's very pretty," she set her hand on top of Tina's as she shot her a sympathetic stare and pouted her lip. "But he's all yours," she assured her.

"I wish," she rolled her eyes and took her hand off of Lennon's arm, sitting back in her seat and explaining that Billy didn't hang around at school any longer than he needed to, which included driving off campus for lunch.

She started talking about Billy and Heather working at the community pool on the weekends and how she doubted she even had a chance with the man.

But even as she held a steady conversation with the girl, her eyes kept shifting to the table in the back. Eddie was complaining about something and apparently, whatever he had to say was funny because the boys sitting around him were laughing and slapping their knees in jubilation.

Lennon yearned to be sat close enough to hear.

But even from afar, he still didn't look like the drug-abusive, satanic worshipper her brother drew him up to be.

She tried seeing him like that, as a scary, dangerous creep no one wanted to hang around. But it wasn't working. The man had friends, a sense of humor, hospitality, and there was something about his eyes that made it impossible to see malice.

As she let her eyes trail away from the Billy conversation to examine him, she was watching how his face revealed a variety of emotions that surpassed what Lennon had felt in the past week. She was focused on how his eyes shifted from the magazine to one of his friends before he threw his head back in disbelief. She was focused on the way he smiled and curled his tongue satirically. She was focused on how passionate he seemed from afar.

Then suddenly her skin ran cold when his eyes were locked in on hers.

She immediately averted her gaze, stunned into silence as she tried to pretend she was still engaged in the conversation Tina was now hooking Chrissy into. She swallowed against the swelling in her throat and shifted the heel of her white sneaker to the edge of her chair to distract anyone from her shifty eyes or damp skin.

She looked down and saw that her hands were shaking. She pulled them into the sleeves of her jacket and forced her eyes on the girls around her. She felt like if she just ignored Eddie's stare that she wouldn't have to face the repercussions of her reckless gaze.

That lasted a few seconds before two boys who looked familiar made their way across the cafeteria and sat down at the table Eddie was at. When she watched them as they walked, she realized the shorter of the two was Dustin and the taller boy was his friend Mike.

Dustin was there when Lennon woke up on Saturday and she had known about Mike through Steve's rambling about Dustin who apparently, befriended Steve the year before but they were not overly public about it. Lennon remembered wanting to make a joke about Steve acting like Dustin was a side chick nobody could know about but she refrained since she didn't feel like starting an argument with the guy the day she learned their names.